I outlined five groups (Brahmin, Dalit, Helot, Optimate, Vaisya) in language that was neutral to slightly negative, using a bit of anthro-speak to focus on personal, rather than political, values.
The Democrats are the party of the Brahmins, Dalits and Helots. The Republicans are the party of the Optimates and Vaisyas. Thus, instead of the red-state / blue-state conflict, which uses meaningless colors and averages geographically in a way that blurs information, we can speak of the “BDH-OV conflict.”
As in any political contest, each side can succeed only by crushing the other – capturing its institutions and converting its followers. But keeping this conflict and its predecessors within the bounds of democratic politics, and preventing any degeneration into actual combat, has been a central concern of American intellectuals for the last 200 years. Obviously they haven’t always succeeded, which makes the concern all the more intense.

As Clausewitz observed, war and politics are a continuum. Representative democracy is a limited civil war in which the armies show up, get counted, but don’t actually fight. The BDH and OV factions refrain – mostly – from inciting or participating in outright warfare, for one reason: it is not in either’s interest.